Page 170 - The Midnight Library

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‘Yes, I understand. It is just that in your recent Rolling Stone inter view you

talked a little about your former boyfriend, Dan Lord, and mentioned how
difficult it was to get the . . . the . . . the restraining order against him, aer
he stalked you . . . Didn’t he tr y to break into your house? en tell rep orters
that he wrote the lyrics for “Beautiful Sky”?’

‘Jesus.’
She hovered at the intersection of tears and laughter, and managed,
somehow, to give neither.
‘I wrote it when I was still with him. But he didn’t like it. He didn’t like me

being in this band. He hated it. He hated my brother. He hated Ravi. He
hated Ella, who was one of the original members. Anyway, Dan was ver y
jealous.’
is was so surreal. In one life, the life he’d supposedly wanted, Dan was

so bored in his marriage to Nora he was having an affair, while in this life he
was breaking into her house because he couldn’t stand her success.
‘He’s a dick,’ said Nora. ‘I don’t know the Portuguese swear word for a
terrible person.’

‘Cabrão. It means someone’s a dick.’
‘Or an asshole,’ the younger guy added, stone-faced.
‘Yeah, well, he’s a cabrão. He turned out to be someone else entirely. It’s
weird. e way when your life changes people act in different ways. e

price of fame, I suppose.’
‘And you wrote a song called “Henr y David oreau”. You don’t get many
songs named aer philosophers . . .’
‘I know. Well, when I studied Philosophy at university, he was my

favourite. Hence my tattoo. And it made a marginally better song title than
“Immanuel Kant”.’
She was getting into the swing of it now. It wasn’t too hard to act a life
when it was the one she was destined for.

‘And “Howl”, obviously. Such a powerful song. Number one in twenty-two
countries. Grammy award-winning video with a Hollywood A-list cast. I
suppose you are done talking about it?’
‘I suppose, yes.’

Joanna went to get herself another honey cake.
Marcelo smiled, gently, as he pressed on. ‘For me it seemed so primal. e
song, I mean. Like you were letting ever ything out. And then I discovered